Chapter 4: The Shattered Philter

Chapter 4: The Shattered Philter

The crunch of gravel under tires was a death sentence.

"He's home!" Seraphina’s voice was a sharp, panicked whisper, the placid doll shattering to reveal the terrified prisoner beneath. The programming was still there, but now it was a warden’s instinct. "You have to go! He'll be so angry! Please!"

Jack’s blood ran cold. The insectoid face from the locket burned behind his eyes, a searing afterimage of the monster wearing Fredrick Marr’s skin. He fumbled the locket, snapping it shut and shoving it back onto the mantelpiece among the others. The front door was suicide.

"Sera, my love? I'm home," a voice called from the entryway. It was a smooth, pleasant baritone, the kind of voice that sold wholesome family values in commercials. To Jack, it was the chittering of mandibles.

Seraphina pushed him, her small hands surprisingly strong. "The stairs! Go now!"

He didn't need telling twice. He bolted from the living room, past the haunting, endlessly looping jukebox, and took the grand staircase two steps at a time. The cold marble felt like ice through the soles of his shoes. Behind him, he heard Seraphina’s voice, artificially bright and strained. "Darling! You're back so soon. I was just... tidying up."

"Of course you were, my perfect girl," the creature’s voice cooed. "Is something wrong? The air feels... disturbed."

Jack reached the second-floor landing, a long, gallery-like hall lined with doors. Which one? He gambled on the largest, the one at the end of the hall, hoping it was the master suite. He slipped inside, closing the heavy oak door behind him with a near-silent click.

The room was as vast and impersonal as the rest of the house. A king-sized bed, perfectly made. A seating area that had never been sat in. The only signs of life were a woman's silk robe draped over a chair and a man's leather-bound book on the nightstand. The air was thick with the sweet, rotten perfume of the creature’s influence. It was stronger here, at the heart of the nest.

He heard footsteps ascending the stairs. Slow. Deliberate. Hunting.

He needed a place to hide, an exit. His eyes darted around the room and landed on a connecting door. The bathroom. He slipped through it, finding himself in a chamber of white marble and chrome that was more mausoleum than washroom. It was pristine, unnaturally clean, as if no human had ever actually used it. There were no water spots in the glass-walled shower, no stray hairs on the floor, no fog on the mirror. The sterile silence was absolute, a stark contrast to the love song still faintly audible from the floor below. The scene was claustrophobic, a perfect, gleaming trap.

And on the sprawling marble vanity, nestled between a set of silver-backed brushes and a crystal dish of untouched soap, sat the source.

It was an antique perfume bottle, crafted from smoky quartz with an ornate silver stopper in the shape of a coiled serpent. To his normal sight, it was just an expensive trinket. But through The Glimmer, it was a miniature sun of malevolent power. The sickly pinkish haze he’d seen choking Seraphina’s aura poured from it in waves, a visible miasma of enthrallment. The scent of rotting sugar was so concentrated here it made his teeth ache. This was it. The alchemical concoction. The Philter. The goddamn weapon.

This was how Fredrick did it. A constant, ambient dose of mind control, perfuming the air his victim breathed, seeping into her skin, rewriting her soul one molecule at a time.

He had to take it. It was the only evidence he had, the only proof that he wasn't insane. It was the key.

Outside the suite, the footsteps stopped. "Darling," Fredrick's voice called, deceptively gentle. "You seem tense. Did you have a visitor?"

A muffled reply from Seraphina. "...no, of course not. I was just startled."

"I see." The voice was closer now, just outside the bedroom door.

Jack’s heart hammered against his ribs. His hand, slick with sweat, reached for the philter. His fingers closed around the cool, smooth quartz. He had to get out. But how? The only other exit he could see was a small, frosted-glass window set high above the enormous bathtub.

The doorknob to the master bedroom turned.

Adrenaline surged through him, a jolt of pure animal panic. His hand jerked back, fumbling the bottle. For a horrifying, slow-motion second, it hung in the air before slipping from his grasp.

It hit the marble floor.

The sound was not a simple crash. It was a sharp, crystalline explosion that shattered the sterile silence of the house like a thunderclap. The quartz bottle disintegrated, and the alchemical liquid within vaporized instantly. The scent of rotting sugar erupted, a choking, invisible fog that filled the bathroom in a heartbeat. It was a psychic scream, an alarm bell made of pure magic.

The sweet, cloying influence washed over Jack, trying to find purchase in his mind. It promised peace, love, contentment. Just stay, it whispered. Everything is fine. Fredrick will take care of you. He gritted his teeth, the scar above his eye burning as he fought off the magical assault.

Downstairs, the jukebox sputtered and died, the sudden silence more terrifying than the music.

The footsteps outside the bedroom were no longer slow and deliberate. They were a frantic, pounding rush. A roar of inhuman rage echoed up the stairs, a sound that was nothing like Fredrick Marr's pleasant baritone.

"YOU!"

The door to the bedroom crashed open. Jack didn't wait to see what was coming through it. He scrambled over the side of the bathtub, his shoes slipping on the porcelain. He reached for the window latch, his fingers fumbling with the stiff metal. It wouldn’t budge. He slammed the heel of his hand against it, once, twice. It finally gave with a groan of protesting wood.

He shoved the window open and squeezed his body through the narrow frame, the rough edges tearing at his coat. He tumbled out into the cold night air, landing hard on the slick, curved Spanish tiles of the roof. Below him was a two-story drop onto a flagstone patio.

The bathroom window was thrown open wider behind him, the sound of splintering wood echoing in the night. He didn’t dare look back. He couldn't risk seeing that chitinous, multi-eyed face again. He scrambled away on his hands and knees, the tiles slippery with evening dew, his only thought to put distance between himself and the monster in the house.

He was ten feet away, poised at the edge of the roof and searching for a way down, when the sharp, unmistakable crack of a gunshot ripped through the silent Hollywood Hills.